The DRAM market has changed from one of falling prices and rising shipments to rising prices and falling shipments, says DRAMeXchange.

In Q1 , DRAM suppliers were able to reduce their inventories and are no longer under pressure to reduce prices.

Consequently, Q1 DRAM ASP rose by about 0-5% QoQ helping suppliers’ profitability. In spite of the minor rise in ASP, Q1 DRAM revenue fell 4.6% QoQ to $14.8 billion, because of COVID-related market disruption.

DRAMeXchange reckons that the backlog of orders in 1Q20 will be deferred to 2Q20. In 2Q20, as the magnitude of  the QoQ increase in DRAM ASP expands, and bit shipment rebounds, it forecasts a QoQ increase of more than 20% in overall DRAM revenue.

DRAM suppliers are projected to continue improving their revenue and profitability.

The Big Three suppliers had revenue contractions in 1Q20 of 3%, 4%, and about 11%, for Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, respectively (Micron’s 11% contraction refers to its fiscal 2Q20 revenue performance, from December 2019 to February 2020).

In terms of market shares, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron occupied 44.1%, 29.3%, and 20.8% of the market, respectively.

Since suppliers have not made any major changes to their capacity plans for this year, DRAMeXchange projects their market shares to remain mostly unchanged in 2Q20.